(Image from NY Times article cited in this post.) I could see some potential issue with the Karen Kane pocket or the Jones Apparel one, but those are off label mass brands that sell for less than Levis. The Jelessy, Von Dutch and Fossil examples are distinct, and those brands are positioned as more premium than Levis, not imitators trying to cash in on Levis brand equity

The past week has found me deep down the Google blog search rabbit hole weighing perspectives on the proposed Design Piracy Prohibition Act. Almost all who oppose the bill (myself included) voice a concern that the small, independent, struggling, up and coming designers this act purports to protect would in practice find themselves victim to a flurry of frivolous lawsuits in a climate of legal intimidation. Immediately my mind went to a January 2007 article in the NY Times, Levis Turns to Suing its Rivals, as a shining example of the type of activity sure to grow like a cancer on an already challenged industry if this bill were to become law.

So Levi’s is becoming a leader in a new arena: lawsuits. The company, once the undisputed king of denim and now a case study in missed opportunities, has emerged as the most litigious in the apparel industry when it comes to trademark infringement lawsuits, firing off nearly 100 against its competitors since 2001. That’s far more than General Motors, Walt Disney or Nike, according to an analysis by research firm Thomson West.

The legal scuffles offer a rare glimpse into the sharp-elbowed world of fashion, where the line between inspiration and imitation is razor thin. After all, clothing makers’ trade secrets are hung on store racks for all to see, and designs can be quickly copied with small changes to exploit a hot trend.

The lawsuits, which Levi’s says it is compelled to file to safeguard the defining features on its jeans, are not about the money — one settled for just $5,000 in damages. Instead, the company says, they are about removing copycats from stores. Nearly all the cases have settled out of court, with Levi’s smaller rivals agreeing to stop making the offending pants and to destroy unsold pairs.

Returing to 2009 for a moment, let’s take a look at professor and copyright attorney Kenneth J. Sanney’s post “Overlawyered or Just Over Simplistic on his blog, The Music Law and Copyright Blog, He accuses Kathleen Fasenella of Fashion Incubator of being ill informed and hyperbolic. While taking a patronizing tone against Fasenella - who has decades of experience in the nuts and bolts of garment production - for simplifying the law, he appears oblivious to the fact that while he might be an expert in the music industry, he clearly does not understand how he has oversimplified the inner workings of the fashion industry and the dynamic of trends and how they interface with culture.

He cites legal recourses available to designers if they are unfairly litigated against, but fails entirely to consider that even with said resources in place, designers would still be stuck in spending countless hours of time and energy dealing with this hassle in the first place. Sanney then goes on to ask the question:

Furthermore, in the current business environment how many large corporations are looking to task resources (both time and money) litigating against small businesses and individuals unless they have a serious claim that pasts muster under the most strict cost/benefit analysis?

LOTS OF THEM.  Think this is lame? Sign the petition here.

Let’s return to the Levis situation to try and determine if they are indeed protecting their trademark from imposters trying to cash in on their brand equity, or simply harassing the designers who are successful because they are offering desirable alternatives to the Levis trademark that had become diluted to the point of being unfashionable. It pretty much boils down the following quote by Steven Shaul:

“It was an original design,” he said. “Why would I use Levi’s stitching? If my jeans sell for $200, I would not knock off $40 jeans from Levi’s.”

Precisely. Shaul’s customer might very well be paying for the status of the logo on the back pocket, but they are paying for something to distinguish themselves from the masses in Levis. And Levis has the right to sue Shaul for this? Apparently so…

Back in the 1980s - when Levis were still cool and Americans were offered big bucks for the jeans off their butts when traveling overseas - there were counterfeiters producing jeans that people bought because they could pass them off as Levis. Just like ladies heading to Canal Street today looking for the guys that will take them into a back alley and sell the fake Louis Vuittons that they are trying to pass of as real. And in that circumstance a company should have the right to pursue legal action. That appears to be the sort of activity that the law was designed to protect against, not declining companies out of touch with the current zeitgeist intimidating upstart designers creating distinctive and highly marketed as such new brands that people are paying four times as much for because they are not like the big mass brands…with but as Mr. Sanney will be quick to point out, I’m not a lawyer, so what do I know.

From the blog, Seattle Trademark Lawyer: "Not identical or nearly identical, so no dilution: Levi’s “Arcuate” and Abercrombie’s “Ruehl” stitch designs "

As noted in the Times quote at the beginning of this post, the vast majority of these 100+ lawsuits were settled out of court by designers unwilling or unable to take on Levis, but what happened when Levis picked on someone their own size?

The image on the right is taken from attorney Michael Atkins blog, Seattle Trademark Lawyer, in a post titled Court Finds Abercrombie’s Stitch Design Does Not Dilute Levi’s Stitch Design

In summary, the court found that the subject marks (depicted above) were not “identical or nearly identical,” so Levi could not prevail on its dilution claim.

The court found: “The advisory jury found that [Abercrombie’s] Ruehl design and [Levi’s] Arcuate mark were not identical or nearly identical. In order to be nearly identical, the two marks must be similar enough that a significant segment of the target group of customers sees the two marks as essentially the same. ‘In the dilution context, the ‘similarity of the marks’ test is more stringent than in the infringement context.’

I couldn’t tell whether or not Atkins firm represented one of the parties in this case. I am, however, curious as to what would have happened to the smaller designers Levis pursued if they’d had the resources to defend themselves as Abercrombie did. I also hope that this case provides the precedent necessary for indies to find attorneys willing to come to their defense without large retainers up front.

(more…)

Photo found at Trendhunter.com, believed to be from a Michael Kors campaign

For several months I’ve been collecting articles about the luxury industry’s contraction and resulting mandate for a new strategy if they’re to survive. Sameer Reddy writes for Newsweek, Luxury’s Image Problem: Having Lots of Fancy Toys is Suddenly Not So Chic:

Until now, the luxury world has represented an ideal lifestyle that the masses aspired to achieve. The models in advertising campaigns for companies like Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo are perpetually stepping off private jets or lounging poolside in five-inch stilettos.

The luxury industry will still represent an ideal lifestyle that the masses will aspire to achieve, it will just have to adjust to the new ideal.

But the economic meltdown has left luxury with an image problem. Signifiers of social status are suddenly out of fashion…

The old signifiers are out of fashion. What will be the new ones? (more…)

Coinciding with the revival of swing dancing over a decade ago, there has been a continual stream of articles alerting us to the popularity of vintage clothing in contemporary fashion. Unlike trends that disappear in a season or two, the interest in and demand for quality vintage has only increased. Given the fact that there is an absolutely finite supply of clothing made in 1955 (or any other year), it was inevitable that archival remakes would appear on the scene.

House of Vionnet 2007

The fashion industry right now seems poised in a moment of cognitive dissonance - watching the hype machine formula that served them so well contract and crumble around them, nervous about committing to a new direction while knowing that their survival depends on it. While there are no doubt many independent designers who relish striking forward into new visions for 21st century, the business machinery who back the vast majority of manufacturing and distribution are groping for a sure thing.

In her article for the Financial Times, Nicola Copping explains “fashion’s love affair with reinventing its own past:”

“The demand for archive pieces is huge in the fashion market,” says Jean Bousquet, managing director of Cacharel, which launched a vintage collection, in collaboration with Liberty, to celebrate its 50th anniversary in April. “We are arriving at the end of a fashion cycle; there has been nothing very new for a long time and a general tiredness has been established. The comeback of vintage testifies to a passion for the renewal of the past. We look at past successes to create the new. We might do several more archive collections in the future.”

It seems contradictory that the antidote to tiredness and lack of newness would be to remake old pieces rather than innovate new ways of dressing. But perhaps the sameness and monotony lamented refers more to what’s hanging on the racks in the mall right now - hundreds of thousands of similar versions of the same WGSN trend dictated pattern blocks. Against that backdrop, an dress from the fifties seems intricate and novel by comparison. Not to mention nostalgic:

“With all the recent concerns in the economy, people are feeling a bit nostalgic; they are looking to brands they can trust, who have a significant heritage and who offer great quality and value,” says Sir Stuart Rose, executive chairman of M&S…After all, when the future is uncertain, why not rely on the stability of the past?

It makes me wonder, though, how this demand for archival quality vintage remakes fits in with Cathy Horyn and Simon Doonan’s observations I quoted in an earlier post:

“It’s impossible to think of something you can drag out from the land of naffness and make cool,” Mr. Doonan said, referring to the process by which banal or out-of-date styles are brought back and, after much analysis and decoding and finally brand approval, become fashionable. He offered up the drop-waist denim dress, a wholesome style from the ’80s, saying it was rife with ironic potential.

I laughed. That was really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

When the term ‘vintage’ has reached the point where it is applied to intricately tailored designer suits from the forties and the pilled rayon floral drop yoked dresses from the early nineties all over the racks of ‘vintage’ stores on South Congress alike, it’s time to dig deeper and get more specific.

At which point I venture into subjective commentary that threatens to reveal the inner old lady I’m cultivating, who’s ever so sure that things were much better in her day… (more…)

Vanessa Friedman writes for the Financial times, Bernard Arnault: How to manage the transition into quality:

Bernard Arnault, chairman of Möet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the largest luxury company in the world, does not like the word “luxury”.

“I prefer to think of it as quality,” he says, a caveat that may seem semantic, but is, in fact, significant: it speaks to the permanent change in the industry that he sees occurring post-recession.

Why is the word ‘luxury’ so problematic? Couldn’t have anything to do with the past decade or so that his illustrious company spent courting the aspirational upper middle class with celebrity bling associations, could it? The photo to the right was pulled from a blogger named Behonce in Malaysia. I thought the text notable as well:

this bag is like a Christmas ornament or a Chinese New Year fortune cookie; the few things you just wanna show off! Combining the richness of gold and the luxurious nature of Louis Vuitton, this bag screams “I am rich, bitch!”.

Forget about being practical. Forget about not being Over the TOP! Honey, it is all about the bling! Paris Hilton has it. So does Kim K. Why not Behonce B? Costing at about USD2080, that is the reason why NOT, Mr Behonce B!

This is why Stealth Wealth has had an underground appeal all throughout the bling decades. But the fact that it’s rising to the forefront is a strong indicator of a seismic shift in culture and values. Back to Arnault:

“The availability of money not just for consumers but buyers will disappear for a very long time – maybe 10 years, maybe until the next bubble,” says Mr Arnault, who believes sector growth will be driven by the real economy, and will not be much more than 2 per cent a year in developed markets – half the rate of the past. What this means for the luxury industry is more competition, not from more brands, but from a – permanently – more discerning consumer base: one that demands legitimacy in all its goods, from history to conception to manufacturing, along with all the information and communication that implies.

In Irony and the Old Lady, a semi-autobiographical pondering of what women over 50 can and can no longer get away with in fashion, Cathy Horyn ventures into a succinct history lesson:

Irony is harder to part with — for the simple reason that many of us who are now in our 50s grew up with that kind of cerebral fashion and were happy to have clothes that made reference to ideas, worlds, that only those in our orbit could understand. Our mothers (mine, anyway) did not see the point in adopting flannel shirts or rummaging through Goodwill bins for just the right filthy cardigan.

And why would they? Grunge and deconstruction, which provided a counterpoint to the slick, aggressive fashion of the late 1980s, were our peculiar trip.

Except now the tacky colorful excess of the eighties - and even the nineties - are the new thing to be ironic about.

But now that every sitcom re-run look has been re-hashed ad nauseum, how much longer will this irony be truly ironic? Will sporting the ugliest thing in the thrift store (like the early nineties floral dress blech currently selling for $40+ at the local ‘vintage’ store) finally lose its cool? Horyn muses:

It may just be that we’ve had a bellyful of abstractions like irony and now hanker for something direct and concrete. This desire for clarity isn’t limited to an age group — young people seem to crave it, too — and it’s not a defense against the standard complaint that you’re not cool enough to get the joke. Who cares if the joke is available to everyone through the Internet?

Madonna’s bunny ears are just the last gasp. Fashion needs a new antidote for modernity.

“It’s impossible to think of something you can drag out from the land of naffness and make cool,” Mr. Doonan said, referring to the process by which banal or out-of-date styles are brought back and, after much analysis and decoding and finally brand approval, become fashionable. He offered up the drop-waist denim dress, a wholesome style from the ’80s, saying it was rife with ironic potential.

I laughed. That was really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

He thought for a moment. “To be overweight and not care, like Beth Ditto, is the most transgressive you can be right now.” But he only said that, I think, because plus-size stories were in a couple of newspapers that day. And you know what they say about newspapers.

Everyone knows it, but the fashion industry won’t admit it - they deliberately shun women over size 10, even though they comprise more than half of the women in America and a good deal of them have plenty to spend on clothing. Emili Vesilind writes for the LA Times, Fashion’s Invisible Woman:

Many retailers aren’t even game to discuss “plus.” When contacted for this story, nearly every major retailer — including Nordstrom, Macy’s, H&M, even Wal-Mart — declined to give interviews on the subject or didn’t respond to requests. It’s an odd silence, considering how ripe the market is. With hardly any high-end resources at their disposal, full-figured women still spent $18.6 billion on apparel in stores and online from December 2007 to November 2008, according to NPD Group.

The good news? That all might be about to change. Sameer Reddy writes for Newsweek, Turning a Page - In Response to Tough Times, the Fashion Industry Discovers Inclusiveness:

After a decade of fantastical growth, the fashion world finds itself confronted with a shift in its fortunes—magazines are folding or cutting back, iconic department stores are losing hundreds of millions of dollars, and designers send out conspicuously commercial collections in a dubious attempt to entice consumers to spend. As the economic picture deteriorates, a glaring discrepancy is beginning to emerge between the glossy images the industry uses to portray itself and the state of the external world. The fashion system is quick to react to shifts in popular mood as tastemakers search for a new editorial formula. That’s how it came to pass that on one of the inaugural covers of Love, a biannual niche title launched this month by Conde Nast, Beth Ditto, the beautiful, overweight lead singer of the Gossip, poses naked, her modesty preserved by nothing more than a cover line and a froth of hot pink organza.

Even though none of the major retailers would talk to her, Vesilind still manages to dig deep into the taboo issue to get at the truth of why larger women are ignored:

It often seems that it’s easier to find and buy stylish clothes for Chihuahuas than for roughly half the country’s female population.

Americans are getting larger, and 62% of females are already categorized as overweight. But the relationship between the fashion industry and fuller-figure women is at a standoff, marked by suspicion, prejudice and low expectations on both sides. The fear of fat is so ingrained in designers and retailers that even among those who’ve successfully tapped the market, talking plus-size often feels taboo. The fraught relationship between fashion and plus-size is far from new, but seems particularly confounding in a time when retailers are pulling out all the stops to bring in business. Carrying a range of sizes that includes the average female would seem like a good place to start.

But why have they not been doing this already?

At the crux of the inequity, according to some plus-size designers, models and retailers, is prejudice toward women the industry doesn’t find particularly glamorous or sexy. Like fifth-grade girls who secretly live in fear of being ostracized from the cool clique, they don’t want to be caught talking to the fat girl.

Yup, there we have it. Underneath it all the fashion industry is just as cruel as junior high. But they couldn’t sell this exclusive mystique if people didn’t buy into it. (more…)

A friend of mine saw these articles in a Sept/Oct 08 issue of Psychology Today and brought me a print copy. It’s such a well written piece that I’m going to quote most of it.  Let’s begin with the opening line from The Style Imperative, by Hara Estroff Marano:

“Do designers dictate hemlines?” the late style doyenne Diana Vreeland was once asked. “Only if you take dictation,” she replied.

With that remark she exposed a rift the fashion world seldom flaunts. There is a vast gap between fashion and style. Fashion is about clothes and their relationship to the moment.

I’m thinking Zoebots (Rachel Zoe dressing Sienna Miller clones) strolling LA with ‘It Bags’ and the latest $300 jean. Then she goes on to succinctly differentiate ‘fashion’ from ’style’.

from thesartorialist.blogspot.com

Style is about you and your relationship to yourself. Fashion is in the clothes. Style is in the wearer. The distinction could not be more revealing.

Despite the proliferation of fashion, style has been out of style for decades. As the economy expanded, America embarked on a collective shopping spree. In place of style we have honored Merchandise. Clothes.

She allows a more generous definition of ‘clothes’ than I do. I would argue that half of the garments in the mall right now (and at least 90% of Forever 21) are too crappy to be considered ‘clothes.’ In fact, for the past couple of years the prescient Williamsburg hipster embrace of lumberjack chic has foretold a backlash to ultra trendy, disposable, ill-fitting garments made of sleazy fabric. Building on the relentless curatorial caché of vintage seen since the eigthies, these durable duds of flannels, canvas and many pockets demonstrate the appeal and new status direction assigned to clothing that is real and functional in a post bubble world. But I digress…

Style, on the other hand, doesn’t demand a credit card. It prospers on courage and creativity.

Style goes way beyond fashion; it is an individually distinctive way of putting ourselves together. It is a unique blend of spirit and substance—personal identity imposed on, and created through, the world of things. It is a way of capturing something vibrant, making a statement about ourselves in clothes. It is what people really want when they aspire to be fashionable (if they aren’t just adorning themselves in status symbols).

DIY reFashionistas, this means you.

Through clothes, we reinvent ourselves every time we get dressed. Our wardrobe is our visual vocabulary. Style is our distinctive pattern of speech, our individual poetry.

from thesartorialist.blogspot.com

Fashion is the least of it. Style is, for starters, one part identity: self-awareness and self-knowledge. You can’t have style until you have articulated a self. And style requires security—feeling at home in one’s body, physically and mentally. Of course, like all knowledge, self-knowledge must be updated as you grow and evolve; style takes ongoing self-assessment…Lastly, style is one part fashion. It’s possible to have lots of clothes and not an ounce of style. But it’s also possible to have very few clothes and lots of style. Yes, fashion is the means through which we express style, but it takes less in the way of clothes to be stylish than you might imagine.

Marano goes on to describe Louis XIV’s influence on establishing Paris as a style capital, and offers Coco Chanel as the one who redefined the term for the 20th century:

She revolutionized style, too, but in the opposite direction. She stripped it down to what we recognize today. In giving clothes simplicity, clarity of line, functionality, emotional directness—inventing sportswear and that blank slate known as the little black dress—she allowed clothes to be animated by the wearer.

Ever heard the phrase ‘it’s how you wear it’? Below she elaborates on the concept.

And that is the style of style—one bold and unexpected gesture against a perfectly proportioned backdrop.

Emphasis on perfectly proportioned. Subtleties of cut, fit and silhouette. To me, this is where style and fashion overlap, at least in MY definition of true fashion (those underlying norms and shapes we’ll recognize 20 years from now as of that time). All that trendy, hyped up filler junk that is marketed as fashion is straight to landfill, not worthy of reviving when the fashion cycle makes its next path through that look.

from thesartorialist.blogspot.com

Why is style important?

Whatever else it is, style is optimism made visible. Style presumes that you are a person of interest, that the world is a place of interest, that life is worth making the effort for.

I don’t know about you, but when I feel the opposite (depressed and life is not worth the effort) you’ll find me in the blah clothes. And if I want to yank myself out of it (or at least fake it to everyone else) I’ll make myself put together a cool outfit before I walk out the door.

True style, in addition to being irrevocably social, is even morally responsible. Consumption isn’t promiscuous or random, at the whim of the marketplace or the urging of marketers. Rather, it is focused on what is personally suitable and expressive.

Conscious consumption. Being really picky. Refusing the junk, digging for the treasure.

Style is psychologically subversive; it exposes the American ambivalence over good looks. It always demonstrates that appearances do count. Deep down we suspect this, since we ourselves make judgments about others from how they look.

No one should be penalized for not having style, of course, but those who have it are distinctive and thus more memorable.

In the end, style is fundamentally democratic. It assumes every person has the potential to create a unique identity and express it through grooming and a few well-chosen clothes. Yet style is also aristocratic. It sets apart those who have it from those whose dress is merely utilitarian. It announces to the world that the wearer has assumed command of herself.

As the speed of all our transactions increases, we need fast ways of transmitting information about ourselves without losing authenticity; we have less and less time to make our mark in other, more leisurely ways of knowing.

You’re at a party/concert/meetup/class, etc. How do you decide with whom to strike up a conversation? (yes, hitting on someone falls in this category.) How do you choose what to wear to the event to signal to strangers your tastes and interests that you hope to have in common? How do you signal to others to not to bother trying?

Style, like a perfectly fitting book jacket, evokes the substance within by way of the surface. It makes an authentic visual impression, is a memorable mark of identity in a world that otherwise strips people of identity. There was a time when style was a luxury. Today it is a necessity.

While many luxury retailers are taking their marketing under the radar, appealing to stealth wealth and discreet luxury, Saks Fifth Avenue is taking a bold move in the opposite direction.

Saks Fifth Avenue shopping bags. Image from NYTimes.com

Their Spring 2009 ad campaign cops a graphically bold stance of shopping with an aesthetic of defiance lifted directly from none other than… the icons of communist propaganda. Whether it makes you cringe, gag or crack and ironic smile, such an open embrace of socialist chic as a ploy to stimulate carefree consumerism is a sure reverberation of the hairpin turn in the zeitgeist. Eric Wilson writes for the NY Times: Consumers of the World Unite

SHOPPING, these days, is a political act. If you are brave enough to buy a $2,000 Prada handbag, you might rationalize that you are helping to stimulate the economy. Solidarity, people!

Saks Fifth Avenue, which has surely felt the recession’s sting, is taking just such a fist-raising stand with its spring marketing. The campaign is inspired by the bold graphic designs and propaganda spirit of Constructivist art — although it is intended to be tongue-in-cheek.

Saks Fifth Avenue ad. Image from NYTimes.com

So is Alexander Rodchenko (the constructivist artist who’s work ‘inspired’ the Saks campaign) rolling in his grave? Not necessarily. I emailed the Times article to my friend who’s actually read Karl Marx, and here’s what he had to say:

But when you view it ala Marx, it makes perfect sense. To him, all art is propaganda. And propaganda is simply anything that promotes a point of view. The Soviets were using their
propaganda to promote nationalism; marketers are using the same images to promote
consumerism, by simply making small changes (prettier models, having the lines move
towards products). It’s still a “Join our bandwagon” message.

(more…)

I was digging around on Douglas Rushkoff’s website when I stumbled upon the article excerpted below (well worth reading in it’s entirety). It is the most eloquent and concise chronology of marketers attempts to co-opt anti-corporate rebellion.

I’ve been a huge fan of Rushkoff ever since I saw his Frontline documentaries, The Merchants of Cool (how corporations hire cool hunters to co-opt youth culture and sell it back to them) and The Persuaders (behind the scenes study of the tactics that very highly paid marketing gurus use to find out how to trigger our reptilian brains into wanting what they have to sell). For anyone curious about the intersection of trends, advertising and corporations, this is essential viewing.

page from Sportswear International Magazine

Here he writes for Sportswear International, an industry magazine focused on the premium youth denim and casual markets. So keep in mind that he’s addressing the very designers and marketers trying to capture the imaginations of this demographic. From The Pursuit of Cool: Introduction to Anti-Hyper-Consumerism:

Writing this little piece could get me in a whole lot of trouble. See, most of my books and articles are about combating the very same marketing techniques you hope to learn by subscribing to a magazine like this one. My usual readers are the kids who buy Adbusters magazine, the activists who protest at the WTO, and parents looking for ways to bring meaning into their children’s lives that don’t involve a new brand of sneaker. If they even suspect me of selling you clues about how teens think and live in order for you to market fashions to them more effectively, I’m done for.

Yes, friends, there’s a war going on and, as far as America’s youth culture is concerned, you are the enemy.

Yes, they are the enemy. Notice how he frames the battle between the anti-corporate, anti-consumerist resistance and the marketers trying to co-opt that rebellion? He says to the coolhunters:

But you were fighting a losing battle. The minute a cool trend is discovered, repackaged, and sold to kids at the mall, it’s no longer cool….They knew that their own claim to a trend is challenged by its adoption into the mainstream, so they looked for ways to hide from your researchers’ hunting scopes.

By the early 90’s, the so-called Generation X believed they had found their defense against you: adopt a posture and lifestyle that resists the notion of cool itself. These self-proclaimed slackers followed Bart Simpson’s lead, and treated every marketing message with good dose of protective irony. They refused to be intimidated into buying the latest styles of jeans or running shoes, opting instead for the ugliest clothes they could find at the local thrift shop. Grunge style, like grunge music, was a revolt against marketing itself.

(more…)

Given the synchronized, dramatic and previously unthinkable implosion of the financial system that managed to evaporate trillions of dollars in the space of a few months with hopes of quick recovery deteriorating even faster, the continuous upscaling and ostentatious displays of wealth (or aspirations to the appearance of such funded by debt) that had become the sanctioned fashionista norm have overnight transformed into code for either poor taste, stupid spending habits, or both.

A few themes are consistent in the current discourse:

1. Flaunting spending on trendy, logo-ed clothing is now considered tacky and so last year.
2. It’s not only okay to cut back, it’s now the cool thing to do
3. For those who still have dollars to spend, it is not considered smart and in-the-know to purchase high quality, discreetly luxurious items.
4. Flashy and trendy is out, subtle and durable is in.
5. This situation is here to stay - consumers have had a bucked of cold water reality dumped over their heads and won’t be able to fall asleep and return to the delusions any time soon.

from Net-a-Porter, posted on Business of Fashion

Thanks to Business of Fashion for alerting us to Net-a-Porter’s roll-out of their new ‘discreet packaging’ option - making it easier for women can hide their guilty indulgences just like men hid porn back when it was still a printed commodity.

From Business of Fashion’s Luxury Outlook: “You’ve Been Shopping, We Won’t Tell”:

From every corner of the globe, in every sector of the economy, key economic metrics are moving erratically, sometimes in magnitudes they have never moved before, within short periods of time that were previously unimaginable. Housing prices, TED spreads, stock market indices, LIBOR rates, consumer confidence, and many other important metrics for assessing the short-term strength and long-term health of our economy are out of statistical control.

As Larry Summers of Harvard University put it, this out of control “patient” needs to be stabilised first, and it seems the injection of liquidity and capital into banks has not yet done the trick. But, when this does eventually happen, there is a long road ahead to reconstruct and re-build the health of our shaken economic system. And until then, things are going to be very tough indeed — and yes, even for the luxury industry.

Scholars have competing theories of cause and effect, but costume history reveals consistent correlation between shifts in the socio/economic/political situation and changes in norms of dress for as long as we’ve had records of both. As Herbert Blumer noted in his 1969 theory of collective selection, new and emerging fashions build on existing ones, and sudden, dramatic shifts in collective tastes and norms are rare and correspond to dramatic shifts in the cultural context. It will take decades to reach the kind of hindsight to reveal the shifts in norms that are taking place under our feet, but rest assured they are there. As old paradigms and economic models are rendered obsolete overnight (Alan Greenspan, for example),  the pages of fashion editorials quickly appear either irrelevant, or in some cases will prove prescient.

Lauren Sherman writes for Forbes, Ten Ways to Buy Luxury, Discreetly:

The financial crisis has made conspicuous consumption gauche. For luxury brands’ products, that means discretion in lieu of drawing attention.

Jill says she almost feels guilty–or embarrassed–about her recent success in the tough economy.

“I hear that lots of folks are losing their jobs and people are going without. And I’m experiencing the opposite,” says Jill. “I’m very careful about what I say around other people now. I don’t talk about spending; I don’t flaunt things. I don’t want to rub people’s noses in it.”…”Anyone who knows me knows I love to shop,” Jill says. “But I’m just not doing it right now.”

…phrases like “stealth wealth,” or discreet luxury, have been floating around marketing circles.

That means luxury goods companies must find new ways to lure consumers. For some, brands with less of a “look at me” attitude are the answer.

“Right now, people are more apt to buy things that promise longer durability, instead of relying on faddish things from year to year,” says Ron Kurtz, founder of Alpharetta, Ga.-based market-research firm the American Affluence Research Center.

And make no mistake, discreet luxury isn’t a passing trend, according to the market researchers we spoke with. Regardless of whether or not overall consumer confidence bounces back in 2009, toning down outlandish spending is here to stay, at least for a while. “This is a real, permanent thing, not a seasonal issue,” says Chung. “It’s no longer cool to spend like that anymore.”

Alex Williams writes for the NY Times, In Hard Times, No More Fancy Pants

When just about everyone is making do with less, sometimes much less, those $2,000 logo-laden handbags and Aspen vacations can seem in poor taste. “Luxe” is starting to look as out of fashion as square-toed shoes.

“The era of conspicuous consumption, at least for the foreseeable future, has come to a close,” said Paco Underhill, the author of “Why We Buy,” which explores the science of retail. “Consumption will still happen. It’s just not going to be as public.”

Today, bejeweled fashionistas are pegged as tone-deaf Marie Antoinettes.

Conspicuous consumption has gone out of style before, in the recession that followed the 1980s stock market boom; and briefly after Sept. 11, 2001, until spending was recast as patriotic. But for a precedent for such a complete about-face in people’s attitudes toward luxury, you would have to look to the Great Depression…Among those who remained solvent in the Depression, there was “a widespread sense that you don’t flaunt your success,” said David E. Kyvig, the author of “Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1940: How Americans Lived Through the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression.”

The economic collapse was also seen as a chance, after the 1920s bacchanalia, for moral cleansing. The industrialist Andrew W. Mellon said it would “purge the rottenness out of the system. People will work harder, live a more moral life.”

Today, such thriftiness might make a comeback, said Alexandra Lebenthal, president of the wealth management firm Lebenthal and a contributing editor for the Web site New York Social Diary. It has become fashionable, she said, for socialites to talk enthusiastically about sample sales, eBay bargains and postponements at the hair salon in the interests of thrift….“It’s now chic to cut back,” she said.

Harry Slatkin, the founder of Slatkin & Co., a home fragrances company, said he and his wife, Laura, recently canceled a 50th birthday party for her at the Pool Room at the Four Seasons. Instead, they plan to have a party at home, with defrosted White Castle cheeseburgers served on silver trays. “It’s not time to have splashy birthday parties,” Mr. Slatkin said. “It’s a time to stay home, spend time with friends and connect.”

“The definition of living well is changing,” said Jim Taylor, a Harrison vice chairman. “There is a desire to not stand out. If you’re laying people off, you don’t want to buy a Ferrari.”

Julien Tornare, the United States president of the Swiss luxury watchmaker Vacheron Constantin, predicted that his industry would move toward a period of “subtle luxury.”

“I think people are going to go with more conservative, not ostentatious — something more discreet that only the connoisseur would know and appreciate, not the bling bling,” he said.

The rich were not the only ones consuming conspicuously in recent years, said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst for NPD Group. The middle class, bingeing on cheap credit, also treated itself. Sub-Zero refrigerators, $300 jeans and Cadillac Escalades seemed within reach, even in average homes. “Those consumers were beneficiaries of false wealth, and they were living, literally, like millionaires,” Mr. Cohen said.

…consumers are turning away from disposable style — the overdesigned “it” handbag, for example — toward high-quality pieces that will endure over multiple seasons, said David Wolfe, creative director of the Doneger Group, which forecasts fashion and retail trends.